Back in my Room
by Kat-of-the-Streets
Summary: The night that Robert returned to Cora's room in S5. One shot.


I am sorry for not having posted anything in such a long time, but I suffered or rather I am suffering writer's block. I actually wanted to work on a Matthew/Mary story, but although I think that the idea isn't too bad, it somehow doesn't translate to the page.

This is something I wrote as a distraction, hoping that it'll make the writer's block go away.

Please let me know what you think!

Thank you and have a great weekend,

Kat

* * *

She feels tons of stones rolling of her heart and shoulders, when, only two minutes after she told Robert to return to her room, she hears him opening the door. And at the same time a new weight begins to put itself in place. He came back, but he only did so because she had been right, she must have been right about him having let it go too far with another woman. She hopes that he really only gave her the wrong impression, that just like she never had any designs set on Bricker, Robert never had any designs set on anyone else. But she doubts it. She is almost sure that there must have been someone else during their marriage, at least once and maybe even twice.

There was someone else before they married, she knows that. Robert never explicitly told her, but everyone knew that he gave up someone else for her or rather for her money. Lady Georgina Walton had been expected to become Viscountess Downton and to be happily married. She even met the woman, she was nice, very good looking and clearly in love with Robert. Whether Robert was in love with Lady Georgina too remains a mystery, but what is not a mystery is that while their wedding night certainly was the first time for her it certainly was not for Robert. Whether he had taken Lady Georgina or some other woman to bed she doesn't know, all she knows is that it must have been more than once. After they were done, she said 'This wasn't the first time you've ever done this,' and Robert said 'no'. She continued with saying 'It wasn't the second or third time either,' and again Robert said 'no'. She turned away from him then and cried herself to sleep.

She is not sure about it and she never dared to ask, but only weeks later, they met Lady Georgina again and Robert stopped coming to her at night for a while. Ever since then she has wondered whether Robert had actually started an affair or whether he just couldn't face sleeping with one woman when he'd much rather do the same with another. Eventually he returned to her and once he had done that, their marriage became better. It took a while, but after almost a year of marriage Robert told her that he loved her with all his heart and she knew it to be true and thus she put Lady Georgina out of her mind. For the next 28 years Robert never gave her any reason to doubt, not a single one, not even when he was at war in South Africa. She knew there were men who took random women to bed, maybe even forced them, to deal with the pain of the war, but Robert was different, he dealt with it all by almost fleeing into writing letters to her and the girls. Not about the war, but about everything else. He described the landscape in great detail, he wrote to the girls about books he read in his own childhood and their girls then read those books and wrote to their father what they thought about them.

But at the end of and after the Great War, during the Spanish Flu, she became aware of Robert being distant with her, of him pushing her away. And she knows there was someone else then. She is sure that it was a maid, Jane, who looked a bit like her, who was kind and a little chatty. What she doesn't know is whether Robert only flirted with the maid or did more, but she supposes that he did more than just flirt, that it was only her own illness that stopped what either was or very likely would have developed into a heated affair. She pushed any thought of Jane and any images of Robert in bed with Jane out of her mind when he told her that they were alright and took her hand in his. To her it had been a promise, a promise that they would make it work, make their marriage work again and thinking about Robert and another woman would not have helped. And she wanted their marriage to work, she knew they could be happy again and they were happy. So very happy. Until Sybil's death, but that is or was, she can never decide, a different matter and they worked through that as well. When they began to grieve together, their marriage healed, the damage she had done to it by blaming Robert vanished without leaving a trace.

And then it hits her. Maybe the damage she and Robert have done to their marriage now, and she is convinced that they are both at fault, in their own ways, will not vanish without trace, that there will be scars this time, scars that will keep hurting or reopen into painful wounds, just as the memory of Jane has just done to her. And regardless of how embarrassed she is by it, how little she wants Robert to know how she feels, tears start running down her face and her shoulders begin to shake. She hopes that Robert won't notice but after having spent more than 34 years by her side and almost 34 years in her bed, of course he notices. He turns towards her and very hesitantly places a hand on her shoulder. A gesture that tells her that he is unsure about all of this, that he feels as vulnerable as she does. And that makes her cry even more. She hears Robert take a deep breath and waits for him to say something but it takes him several more seconds to find the courage.

"Cora," is all he says but it lets the tiny little bit of self-control that she still possessed, that stopped a crying fit, melt away and her whole body begins to shake. Robert doesn't hesitate this time but just grabs hold of her and kisses her head and the part of the face he can reach. Involuntarily she turns around in his arms and presses her face against him. He doesn't object or move although she knows that his shirt must be getting wet. He just lets her cry, all the while holding onto her. Only when she has calmed down does he speak again.

"I love you," he says and nothing else. He hasn't said it in a very long time, he is not the type of man to say it very often, he prefers to show it. By holding her hand, by giving her swift kisses in public or sometimes just by brushing his knuckles across her cheek or just smiling at her in a certain way. But it must have been months since he said it the last time.

"I love you too," she mumbles against him and then breaks down in tears again. And again he just holds onto her and lets her cry. His patience with her makes her cry even harder and although she wishes she could stop, she just can't, not for a while.

When her tears finally subside, she looks up at him and he gives her a very faint smile, one that is hardly recognizable in the dim light of the one lamp that he left on, a smile she would not recognize if she didn't know Robert so well. It is a smile that tells her not to worry, that he does not mind her crying fit, that maybe he even understands. He presses a kiss on her forehead and she hums in reply. They don't say anything for a few minutes but it is not an uncomfortable silence.

Eventually Robert begins to press more kisses to her head and when she looks up at him he kisses her face as well and it only takes a few minutes for them to get lost in passionate love making. She clings to Robert desperately, both during their love making and afterwards. When he wants to move off her, she holds him in place and says "No". He gives her another kiss then, puts his weight on his arms and looks at her in a way that makes her feel as if he was looking into her soul. Her legs are still wrapped around him and she wonders when she felt this close to him the last time. And whether he has ever been this close to anyone else since the day they got married.

"God, I missed this. I missed being so close to you," he says to her in a hoarse whisper and something in his voice makes her ask the question she hasn't dared to ask for years.

"Have you ever done this with anyone else since we got married? Is that why you are back in my room?" Understanding dawns on his face, maybe he has just realized why she cried so much and she can see him swallow.

"No. I haven't done this with anyone else since I danced with you for the first time. And what I did before then was nothing. A few drunken nights with women I never saw again."

"What about Jane?" He looks at her a little surprised but his eyes stay focused on hers.

"No. I kissed her, I can't deny that and yes, I wanted to take her to bed." He stops speaking then and she isn't sure whether her world has just fallen into pieces or not.

"But you didn't sleep with her."

"No. To be quite honest, I don't think I could have done it, even if we had not been interrupted. I very much doubt that I would have been able to go through with it. Neither emotionally or physically. I probably would have made quite a fool of myself. Although that would have been a lot less than I would have deserved had I actually tried."

"What would you have deserved?"

"You hating me forever." He says it without thinking and she wonders if this is something he has in fact thought about quite a lot.

"Would that have been painful then? If you had had someone else?"

"It would have killed me on the inside because I never wanted someone else. I don't know why I let it go so far, perhaps because I felt neglected or useless. Everyone was doing their bit and I only sat around."

"Did you enjoy kissing Jane? Did that give you a purpose?"

"It made me hate myself. I knew that what I was doing was wrong. And I still did it. And I can't explain why. But before you have to ask, you are much better at kissing me than she was. Infinitely better." She doesn't know why, maybe it is the relief of finally getting rid of her doubts or maybe it is the relief of Robert having been so honest, but she has to laugh now. Robert smiles at her and she leans up a bit and kisses him very deeply, so deeply that he begins to moan.

"Good?" she asks and he moves against her to show her just how good he thought the kiss was.

"I never wanted him in here. I never wanted him the way I want you," she blurts out and Robert says "I know, my darling," before he leans forward to kiss her quite the same way she kissed him only half a minute earlier. With quite the same effect.

"I missed this too," she whispers into his ear a little while later and he chuckles.

Later the next day, when Robert tells the family that he wants to show them some drawings of houses, she knows that he isn't only referring to Mary and Tom but to her as well. So she accompanies him without question and he smiles at her and holds her hand on their way to the library.


End file.
